“He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee.

“And since that time, I have wanted to be a writer, though I rarely told anyone so. I was afraid they’d tell me I didn’t have a hope.”

She also describes herself as “quiet, freckly, short-sighted and rubbish at sports (I am the only person I know who managed to break their arm playing netball). My favourite subject by far was English, but I quite liked languages too. I used to tell my equally quiet and studious friends long serial stories at lunch-times. They usually involved us all doing heroic and daring deeds we certainly wouldn’t have done in real life; we were all too swotty.”

(According to Dictionary.com, ‘swotty’ means “given to studying hard, esp to the exclusion of other activities.”)

Writing a character with a health problem is one of many ideas she used from her own experience.

A profile in The Scotsman, 16 June 2003 (Part One) points out “A childhood bout of measles, at the age of four, provided the author’s earliest memory of books, when her father raised her spirits by reading aloud to his bed-bound daughter the adventures of Toad of Toad Hall, from The Wind in the Willows. Books were spread around the house, crammed in every room…”

In 1974, the profile continues, “her parents purchased an old stone cottage in Tutshill, on the Welsh border, close to the Forest of Dean, which would become a blueprint for Harry Potter’s Forbidden Forest… The idyllic Church Cottage, which had a flagstone floor and a covered well, was just a goblin’s throw from the local graveyard, and was surrounded by countryside in which the Rowling sisters would enact their adventures.”

But her “first day at Tutshill Church of England school in September 1974 was not a success. She scored only half a mark out of ten in a test that led to her being positioned on the less intellectual side of the class. Her natural ability soon shone through and she was promoted.”

The teacher was “a strict, intimidating woman, who frightened Joanne as a child and whose presence would work its way into the less sympathetic masters of Hogwarts. By the age of ten, Joanne was a keen Brownie, a voracious reader and a serious student who raced to get her hand up first.”

“I was the epitome of a bookish child, short and squat, thick National Health glasses, living in a world of complete daydreams.”

In a Scholastic press interview she said, “I had some wonderful teachers, but I never confided that I wanted to be a writer. Writing for me is a kind of compulsion, so I don’t think anyone could have made me do it, or prevented me from doing it.”

On her own site, she adds, “As soon as I knew what writers were, I wanted to be one. I’ve got the perfect temperament for a writer; perfectly happy alone in a room, making things up.” [jkrowling.com]

Imaginational Overexcitability

In her SENG presentation Understanding Overexcitabilities: The Joys and the Challenges, Susan Daniels, PhD comments about Imaginational Overexcitability: “…if one has an imagination like J. K. Rowling, an entire feast hall with floating candelabras, wizards and dragons can result.”

A BBC biography: JK Rowling – Author notes “In her final year of school Joanne became Head Girl. One of the characters in the Harry Potter series, Hermione Granger, is extremely keen on and serious about schoolwork and studying. Joanne has admitted that this character was based on herself”

“I wasn’t as clever as I thought I should be. I don’t think I was a know-it-all. I was obsessed with achieving academically, but that masked a huge insecurity,” Rowling said.

Bullying

Teased about her name, with schoolmates calling her ‘Rowling Pin,’ she says “I know what it is like to be picked on, as it happened to me, too, throughout my adolescence. Being a teenager can be completely horrible…I wouldn’t go back if you paid me.”

Of course, many children get bullied, many love to read and create, and feel shy or insecure at times, but these experiences may be particularly intense, meaningful and enduring for gifted and creative children.

“Leslie Graves, executive member of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children, writes:

#IWG2012 – Second week, August 2012 – We will celebrate with a blog tour over the week, in honour of the upcoming International Year of Giftedness and Creativity 2013.

This tour invites any who wish to blow a breath of air at our communal kite of giftedness, attach a bow of an idea onto it’s tail, — help it start to get it off the ground, simply by taking part, to contribute a blog post with your stories/ideas, and help others to see what can be…

We are hoping that the #IWG2012 will give our gifted global community’s beautiful kite a good head start with your ideas.

About Douglas Eby

Douglas Eby (M.A./Psychology) is author of the Talent Development Resources series of sites including High Ability; Highly Sensitive and Creative; The Creative Mind and others - which provide "Information and inspiration to enhance creativity and personal development." Also see Résumé.

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High Ability is part of The Creative Mind series of sites by Douglas Eby, providing information and inspiration for exploring your creativity and personal growth.